4:49 pm

Thu November 7, 2013

FDA Moves To Phase Out Remaining Trans Fats In Food Supply

Crisco was the original product made with partially hydrogenated soybean oil, which contains trans fats. Today, Crisco has only small amounts of the fats.

Tony DejakAP

If the Food and Drug Administration has its way, an era of food technology will soon end. The agency announced Thursday it is aiming to ban partially hydrogenated vegetable oils from all food products.

Margaret Hamburg, the FDA commissioner, said at a press conference that her agency has come to the preliminary conclusion that the oils "are not generally recognized as safe for use in food."

If the agency makes this decision final, it will mean a complete ban on this ingredient.

Health concerns about the trans fats in the oil have been mounting for years. The biggest concern? Trans fats raise the risk of heart disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that an FDA ban on trans fats could prevent an additional 7,000 deaths from heart disease each year and up to 20,000 heart attacks each year.

But it took decades for health officials to arrive at that conclusion.

Partially hydrogenated oil came on the market about a century ago when food scientists figured out how to add hydrogen atoms to a molecule of oil. Typically, it's soybean oil.

Kantha Shelke, a scientist with the Institute of Food Technologists in Chicago, says this makes liquid oil more solid, and stable. Depending on how you add the hydrogen atoms, you can make the oil as solid as you like.

"So we could literally dial the needle to as solid as you wanted, and get the kind of results we were looking for," says Shelke.

These results include cookies or doughnuts that didn't leave a ring of oil behind on a paper towel and don't start tasting rancid after a few weeks.

Also, this oil doesn't have a strong taste of its own so you can use lots of it without ruining the flavor.

"It's really absolutely perfect, and it's also perfect for the American style of shopping: You buy boxes and boxes of crackers, put them in your pantry," says Shelke. "You open this box six months or eight months or a year later, and it would still taste and smell just as good as it was on the day you bought it!"

By the time the government came up with laws regulating food additives, people had been eating this form of oil for decades with no apparent problems.

David Schleifer, a researcher at a nonprofit group called Public Agenda, in New York, says most scientists in the 1980s actually thought this kind of oil was probably safer than lard or palm oil. Schleifer wrote a recent journal article on the history of trans fats.

McDonald's, Schleifer says, previously used beef tallow for frying. "People freaked out about beef tallow because it had saturated fat, and McDonald's responded to that public outcry by replacing beef tallow with trans fat," he says.

Everything changed in the mid-1990s. New studies showed that trans fats raised bad cholesterol and increased the risk of heart disease.

In fact, they were even worse than saturated fats. In 2006, after a campaign by public health advocates, the FDA required food companies to add trans fats to food labels.

Most companies responded by drastically cutting their use of partially hydrogenated oil. That had a big impact on consumption — Americans consumed around 1 gram per day in 2012, down from 4.6 grams per day in 2003.

But not every company has eliminated it from every product.

You can still find trans fats in microwavable popcorn, frozen pies and all kinds of mass-produced baked goods. Often, food companies use just a little bit. If there's less than half a gram of trans fats per serving they can list the amount of trans fats in their products as zero.

A complete ban on trans fats would be a big deal for food manufacturers, says Shelke. She says food companies can drop the trans fats, but their products won't be quite the same.

"They have to go back to re-educating consumers that cookies and consumers don't last forever," says Shelke.

The cookies will have a shorter life, but consumers' lives might be longer.

Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block in Washington D.C.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

And Audie Cornish, this week in California. The mysterious words partially hydrogenated vegetable oil may soon disappear from food product labels. The reason, that kind of oil contains artificial trans fats and they're the worst kind of fat. They raise the risk of heart disease. For years now, under pressure, food companies have been reducing their use of trans fats.

Today, the Food and Drug Administration proposed to get rid of them once and for all. NPR's Dan Charles has more.

DAN CHARLES, BYLINE: Partial hydrogenation is what it sounds like. You add some hydrogen atoms to a molecule of oil, often it's soybean oil. Kantha Shelke, a scientist with the Institute of Food Technologists in Chicago, depending on how you introduce hydrogen, you can make liquid oil a little more solid or a lot more solid.

KANTHA SHELKE: So we could literally dial the needle to as solid as you wanted it, and get the kind of results we were looking for.

CHARLES: Results like baked goods that don't start tasting rancid after a few weeks. Cookies or donuts that don't leave a ring of oil behind on a paper towel. Also, this oil doesn't have a strong taste of its own. You can use lots of it without noticing any change in taste.

SHELKE: It's really absolutely perfect, and then it's also perfect for the American style of shopping, which is you buy boxes and boxes of crackers, leave them in your pantry. You open this box six months, or eight months or a year later.

CHARLES: And it's still good. Now, partially hydrogenated oil came on the market about a century ago. By the time the government came up with laws regulating such things, people had been eating it for decades with no apparent problems.

DAVID SCHLEIFER: Products that were in the food system before that generally got a pass.

CHARLES: David Schleifer is a researcher at a nonprofit group called Public Agenda, in New York, and he wrote is dissertation on the history of trans fats. The government put these ingredients into an unregulated category called generally recognized as safe. Schleifer says most scientists at the time actually thought this kind of oil was probably safer than lard or palm oil.

McDonald's, for example, used to fry things in beef tallow.

SCHLEIFER: People freaked out about beef tallow because it had saturated fats and McDonald's responded to that public outcry by replacing beef tallow with trans fat.

CHARLES: Everything changed in the mid-1990s. New studies showed that trans fats raised bad cholesterol and increased the risk of heart disease. In fact, they were even worse than saturated fats. In 2006, after a campaign by public health advocates, the Food and Drug Administration required food companies to add trans fats to food labels.

Most companies responded by drastically cutting their use of partially hydrogenated oil, but not every company and not every product. You can still find them in microwavable popcorn, frozen pies and pizzas, all kinds of baked goods, in fact. Often, food companies use just a little bit. If there's less than half a gram of trans fats per serving, they can put zero trans fats on the label.

Today, Margaret Hamburg, the FDA commissioner, announced that the agency is now taking the next step.

MARGARET HAMBURG: The agency has made a preliminary determination that partially hydrogenated oils are not generally recognized as safe for use in food.

CHARLES: If the FDA makes this preliminary decision final, it will mean a complete ban on this ingredient.

SHELKE: Is this a big deal for our food manufacturers? Yes, it's a very good deal.

CHARLES: Kantha Shelke from the Institute of Food Technologists says food companies can drop the trans fats, but their products won't be quite the same.

SHELKE: They have to go back to re-educating consumers that cookies and crackers don't last forever.

CHARLES: The cookies will have a shorter life, but your life may be longer. Dan Charles, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.